Me, Gorgon
Inquire about this workI was in hell, and in it I was Medusa Gorgon,
my poem translated from Russian
Unjustly punished for Poseidon’s violation.
Or perhaps Poseidon was a surge of feeling, an element,
From which one should not have sought refuge in Athena’s temple?
Perhaps it would have been more honest to throw myself into the embrace of the wet god,
With a lustful cry to merge with him in sea foam, in the salty abyss,
And to die with the last exhalation of the lips at the bidding of fate —
A bubble rising from the bottom and bursting on the blue surface?
But it no longer matters for what my hair was turned into snakes, and my skin into scales.
My hands slide along the cold walls of the cave,
My cry of anger and resentment cuts into space, slicing the silence,
And returns to me in a voice not my own. Only the loss
Of reason would be salvation — but the prudent gods
Ordered the Moirai not to allow me to go mad,
And I am forced to suffer, aware of the unbearable punishment,
Thus multiplying the torment twofold.
The cursed snakes drive me mad with their incessant hissing.
I grab one of them and pull with all my strength — but it
Takes its beginning not in my crown, but in my still-human heart —
It mockingly teases with a thin tongue, as if tracing in the air the word “futility.”
This is my hell. In it there is inevitability, and malice, and pain,
The injustice of life and the dead end of solitary suffering.
But I, like Sisyphus, having once again seen my stone at the foot of the mountain,
Will carry these snakes on my head held high, baring my teeth at the universe.
The painting changes with the light. It is most beautiful at sunset, when the last rays fall onto the opposite wall and the canvas catches their reflected, liminal glow. The raised hand, the snakes, and Medusa’s pale eyes begin to appear almost fluorescent—as though the figure were briefly coming alive in the fading light.